UNNECESSARY LATE NIGHT THOUGHTS: COOL FACTOR VS. QUALITY VS. NOSTALGIA

I think there is a certain joyful independence when you discover a great film on your own.  It’s liberating in a way that is very nearly indescribable.  Sure, as children we all had our penchant for certain films.  I’m pretty sure that I would throw a tantrum before afternoon kindergarten if I didn’t get to watch Cinderella. EVERYDAY.  Don’t get me started on the horrific anti-feminist values in that story, but sometimes kids just like what they like.  (I was also obsessed with a weird sci-fi movie called Mac and Me, as well as Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Her Alibi.) But on some level, your parents are still choosing for you, based on what is available to you (unless you have older siblings, and even then you are limited by their tastes).

What’s my point?  I have a distinct time-capsule memory of my first meaningful film discovery.  I was very much invested in a top 40 countdown on MTV (I think this was perhaps pre-VH1 being avail on basic cable, as well as when MTV still aired music videos on a regular basis…. This makes me sound so old).  I had my tape recorder ready to record some songs… tape player firmly pressed against the 3x3” square grated speaker on the lower right hand corner of the television - the huge cubic box that sat on our indoor sunporch (yes, that totally existed).  I had heard the single “Til I Hear It From You” by the Gin Blossoms on the local radio staion (WNCI, 97.9) and I was waiting to see the video and record the song (I also really wanted to record Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose”).  It was then that I realized that the song I had been obsessed with was from a movie.  I decided that I MUST SEE THAT MOVIE. 

I couldn’t see it in the theater, because I was 10.  And my mom would totally scoff.  I had to wait.   Fifth grade started and I didn’t forget about it, I just filed it away. I kicked myself for not seeing Clueless.  But mostly I was obsessed with Val Kilmer and Batman Forever.  And let us not forget Yikes! pencils and pogs. 

Later, during one of our trips to the video store (it was INSIDE the grocery store), that I saw the movie and rented it.  I think I watched it over and over until we had to return it.  It was everything I had hoped it would be without knowing anything about it.  I hadn’t seen a trailer, I couldn’t google it because google hadn’t been invented.  I fell in love.  I was convinced that I should work in a record store, wear plaid skirts with combat boots, and marry Johnny Whitworth.    I wanted to live inside that movie.

During the summer of 1996, HBO aired both Empire Records and Clueless.  I recorded both and watched them on repeat.  It was the greatest summer of my life.  I remember being frustrated that I couldn’t find a decent plaid mini skirt at my local  Value City (the irony of course is that I had been wearing my school uniform plaid skirt to school, but it wasn’t the right kind of plaid skirt).

Later that fall, I was at the library and I saw Dazed and Confused on the shelf in the video section. The stoned-smiley face (I didn’t know what being stoned was…) that was on the cover of the VHS is something I had remembered seeing on the cash register in Empire Records. I thought it was a sign.  I watched.  I was obsessed.  I was 11.  I’m pretty sure I kept renting it from the library and taking it to sleepovers.  No one wanted to watch it.  I think we ended up putting it on in the background at Mary Patrick’s house and me and Kelly Crupski were the only ones who watched. I was totally ahead of my time.

Now that you’ve read and understood the elaborate backstory for how I discovered my first set of favorite films, you can be equipped for the dissection I’m about to engage in… 

Why do I like these films? 

QUALITY: The film has a strong narrative, real characters, decent pacing, and you care about how it ends. 

Clueless: It’s a good film.  It has strong characters, great writing, snappy dialogue, and a plot. Not to mention Paul Rudd. It essentially birthed the modern-day hipster vernacular for better or worse.  The story holds up, but the fashions, technology, and social interactions are dated.  It is very much a time-capsule film.  As much as I would like to argue that it is an epic, timeless film, it is not.  It is based on Emma, which is an epic, timeless story.  Do I like Clueless because it’s good, or because it’s “cool”, or because I’m nostalgic for the era shown in the movie as well as the time in which I saw it? 

Empire Records: As much as it pains me to admit it, Empire Records is a weak film. The characters are haphazardly painted stereotypes that are never quite realized.  They are gestures of characters.  The plot is thin and cloudy – the employees of a dear independent record store wish to save it from becoming an evil corporate franchise.   This is complicated by the resident screw-up blowing 9K of the sales money in Atlantic City.  There are a lot of weird subplots, like a faded rock star, a suicide attempt, a sign that’s always broken, and employees who rarely work while at work.  I want that job.  It is flawed, but it is a “slice of life” type of film, which I do like, but I’m not sure that it actually works in this instance.  I think that this film is my mac and cheese – it’s always a good idea, it tastes great, but it lacks nutritional substance.   It definitely has the “cool factor” as well as the nostalgia, but I don’t think that it is necessarily a quality film.  This pains me very much.  It’s like the first time you realize that you parents are human.  It’s kind of devastating.

Dazed and Confused: It’s a decent film.  It suffers from too many characters that each lack development beyond their high school stereotypes.  However, the plot is simple: the huge house party gets shut down, so the kids must find another way to drink, smoke, and rock ‘n roll.  There is a secondary plot (or maybe it is the main plot?) that the quarterback of the football team doesn’t want to sign an oath the team about remaining drug-free or something.  It’s one of those moments when a film about nothing suddenly wants to be about something.  Maybe I’m completely misreading it.  Considering the number of characters, it does a decent job of making you understand who is who, but since the plot is so thin, you would hope that it would expend some energy revealing who our protagonists are.  The pacing is kind of strange and while there are some great, really quotable lines, it’s a time capsule movie.  It’s got the “cool” and the nostalgia (for a time I didn’t even get to experience) and to a certain extent, it has quality. 

COOL FACTOR: The characters in the film are people you would like to emulate or become.  You want to live and breathe in their world.  There is no real threat to you in this world, and life would seem somewhat easy (it’s not as if you’re casting yourself in a horror movie…) There also has to be a killer soundtrack full of bands you most likely have never heard of, or unknown tracks from well-known artists. 

Clueless: you are living life through the most popular girl in high school in California, often seen as the “promised land” with it’s attractive residents and perpetual sunlight.

Empire Records: you are experiencing a community of fun-loving alterna-cool youths (I was never really sure how old they were.  I know Corey and Gina just graduated from high school, but AJ has his own apartment…?) who work at a really cool record store and despite having “real” problems, are actually fairly well adjusted and attractive.

Dazed and Confused: there are varying cliques and sub-sets, but they are all cool.  Even the freshmen portrayed in the film are the coolest freshmen despite getting whipped by the seniors.  Any character in that film is “cool” based solely on their involvement.  That film focuses on “cool” and “fun,” so any character on screen could be seen as “cool.”

NOSTALGIA: The yearning to experience a past time and/or place.  I think this can be defined as a past time in which the film takes place, or a past time in which the viewer saw the film.  The films will probably also have "before they were stars"-type appearances from then up-and-coming actors. 

Clueless: While I know that I am nostalgic for the 90’s, I am also nostalgic for my youth and the development of self.  I often think back on the person I was and how I became the person I am today.  It’s perplexing to ponder how much film and television and media have all played a major role in my personal development.  Clueless was a huge building block in who I am today.  I think I yearn for both the era within the film as well as the period in which I was obsessed with the movie.

Empire Records: I think it has to be both, as with Clueless. I loved the 90’s with it’s strange sense of weird-cool and the perfect day in the film.  The entire film takes place in a day and it is one day that I wouldn’t mind re-living.

Dazed and Confused: This is an interesting film because it makes me nostalgic for a period of time that I did not actually live through.  I was constantly being told that I was born in the wrong time and this film cemented that fact.  I knew in my heart that I was meant to be a dirty hippie or a bellbottom-wearing disco diva in the 70s, so this film completely allows me to inhabit those alternate realities.  It also makes me wish I was young again, bringing VHS tapes to sleepovers.

Are these movies to be considered “cult films”?  Maybe.  I can’t help but look back and think about how these films apparently didn’t make much money at the box office, but now I can’t run into a person who hasn’t seen these movies and enjoyed them.  I’m sure it’s because they have now been aired on TV about a bajillion times, but if they didn’t have some merit, wouldn’t most people have just channel surfed past them?   As if.

Day 365

This is a photo of a coaster my BFF L sent to me. It makes me so happy!

My year of BLONDE is COMPLETE! I really can’t believe that I was able to stay blonde for an entire year! Not because being blonde in hard, but mostly because I’m terrible at finishing what I start. I’m also a master procrastinator, so I put off everything and when I do start something, I don’t finish it. But these things only apply to my own personal projects – like writing that novel, inventing that teleporter, and whitening my teeth (I mean... who can use those strips for a full week, let alone two!?). Essentially, my BLONDE year was a success because I completed it. If only everything in life were that easy.

I will admit that I regret not posting religiously on a daily basis. I guess that whole “living my life” and “having a job” thing kind of got in the way of my “vapid, superficial social experiment” known as “blonde blogging.”

The good news is that I’m going to STAY BLONDE. At least for the summer. I’m going to keep my new haircut and my spark of pink. I think that it’s fun and it’s treated me well. In the past year, my career has blossomed and I’ve met a lot of new people and made some new friends. I’ve traveled and I’ve loved and I’ve become obsessed with nail polish. I discovered that I like having my eyebrows and eyelashes professionally tended.

I think the most important thing that I’ve taken away from my BLONDE experience is my feminist awareness. I never thought that blonde hair would lead to modern feminist theory. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I guess I didn’t know what to expect. Perhaps I was expecting to be treated like Marilyn, or to have men throw themselves at me, because we all know “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” The fact that I thought those things just goes to show how I’d been conditioned by our male-dominated patriarchal society. I guess I always knew that this was true, but only when I was forced to examine myself through the lens of the male gaze.

Through this experiment I have become a stronger woman. The ideals instilled in me since birth that I need a man to 1) make me whole, 2) help support me financially, 3) make me feel good about myself, and 4) lift heavy things have been completely shattered. I hate to admit to you or even myself that before my blonde year, on some level, I held all of those to be true. It’s not that I never thought about those things, it’s that I’d never addressed them or challenged them - maybe because I was weak or too self-involved with other neuroses.

Being BLONDE artificially was a choice and because of that choice, I was able to feel like I was in control of my physical appearance and how I was perceived. This made me painfully aware of how others see me – primarily men. I became somewhat obsessed with the male gaze. At first, I fell into the trap of wanting to appear pleasing and attractive to men so that my blonde ambitions could be deemed a “success,” as if being oogled by guys was my ultimate goal. Upon further inspection, I realized that I had subconsciously faltered. I then began subverting the male gaze through my wardrobe, makeup, and vernacular. I let my outer shield of propriety melt away. I said what I was thinking. I wore clothes that I was comfortable in. I wore clothes that I looked and felt good in – but not to please any man – I did it for myself. It’s a stunningly new concept for me, as I’m sure it is for other women. It’s one thing to want to look good FOR someone else than it is to want to look good for yourself.

I guess you could say that I evolved – epically. Over the course of one short year, I changed my life in a single hair color-related decision. I could call this an example of the butterfly effect, right? One small event leading to other larger events and larger consequences. I’m glad that this one small decision didn’t lead to crazy bad things like my hair falling out or losing my job. That would have been a horrible conclusion to this little experiment. I’m lucky that things have gone so well for me.

I’m not a different person, I’m just more me (despite the fact that the hair on my head is not the color that grows there naturally). It’s strange to think of yourself as not being yourself, but we all have layers and filters and walls protecting who we are… whether it’s fear or scar tissue or insulation. It is beyond cliché to think of people as being surrounded by walls and armor and fortresses, but sometimes clichés exist because they are true, right? I always vowed to never forsake who I really am (God, the sounds like an excerpt from my 8^th grade diary), and realizing that you have tendencies to do so is kind of shocking.

So, in conclusion (this post is already way too long and I’m surprised you’ve kept reading this far), from this point forward, I may not always be BLONDE on the outside, but I’m going to forever have a BLONDE heart (dibs on that band name! The Blonde Hearts will be playing Pat Benatar covers in a moldy basement near you!). I honestly am surprised by the success of this whole endeavor. I guess I shouldn’t be if I knew myself at all. I knew when I embarked on this journey that things would change. After all, change was the entire basis for this experiment. Can being BLONDE change your life? Only if you want it to.

I know what you’re wondering – now that “my BLONDE year” is over, what will become of this blog? I think I’m still going to post. Now that we can all agree that my BLONDEness has transformed into MEness, I can and will use this blog to write about anything I please because I make the rules, and I think that there are no rules.

THERE ARE NO RULES.

This is a real fortune I got yesterday. Nothing but great things ahead!

This year gets 10 Barbie Warhols:

Day 339

I started a new job this week. I’m not going to talk about it, because legally I can’t. I signed a non-disclosure agreement. And it’s not that interesting anyway. Paper here, paper there…. Movie this, movie that. But I’m working with some people who I have worked with before and it’s kind of funny because they didn’t really recognize me. They did double takes. I had long red hair and now I have short blonde and pink hair. I guess it is quite the change, but to me it almost feels natural.

I guess that’s the thing about change… sometimes you don’t even notice, or sometimes it shakes your whole world. Like the day I discovered gray nail polish? That totally shook my world. The day I adopted my cat – totally changed everything (like having to bolt trashcans to the wall and deal with a ball of fur that eats with her hands). On the other hand, I didn’t even notice that I’m really into David Lynch stuff until I realized that I’ve watched a lot of David Lynch stuff in a short amount of time (true story). I didn’t realize that I grind my teeth until I woke up one morning with jaw pain. I didn’t notice that my coffee table was slowly getting shifted further and further off center along with the rug… until I did. I would argue that these little things matter. Does it matter that my coffee table was 6” off center? Not really, but I probably should have noticed since I’m a world-renowned detective. Wait, that’s not right. I probably should have noticed because I’m delusional and watch a lot of detective shows.

I think what I’m trying to grasp is awareness – subtle change vs. colossal change in a context that can lead to enlightenment. I actually hate the word “enlightenment.” It’s a word I used in 8^th grade Religion class to seem like I knew what I was talking about. Maybe I mean “consciousness,” but whatever… semantics, right? I think that what started my blonde year was the need for colossal change, but via subtle or “trivial” change. How consequential is your hair color? I managed to make a change have meaning despite its inherent superficial leanings. A journey of a thousand strands begins with a single hair color.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols:

Day 331

Amnesia. That’s the only real excuse for not posting for over 100 days. It’s actually closer to 200 days, but I’m blonde, so I can pretend that I’m not good at math. However, I was not stricken with amnesia (do people really get amnesia? Or is it just a convenient plot device used in soap operas and David Lynch movies?), I was consumed by work. I was given an option – I took the red pill and ventured down the rabbit hole (The Matrix has been on TNT a lot lately). I could have stayed in LA, had a somewhat easier (I think it was probably more “convenient” than “easy” but I’m not about to nitpick over my diction today) job, but I had an opportunity to have an adventure. What kind of BLONDE would I be if I said no to that?

So I traveled and worked my ass off. And it was wonderful. And terrible. It was an experience that I’m sure I will look back on fondly, but at the moment, I’m just tired. Even typing this right now seems so foreign. I haven’t taken the time to be self-indulgent for so long and it feels strange. I love writing, but this blog seems so self-involved, so self-centered. I’m used to writing for myself, and essentially no one reads this blog, so I suppose I am writing for myself… just in an embarrassing public forum. But just like if a tree falls in the forest… if a writer blogs, and no one is there to read it… did the writer really blog at all? Sometimes I feel that way; I get way too into my head and I overanalyze and criticize and belittle myself. I have things to write, and I’m not writing for you, I’m writing for me – and if you don’t like it, don’t fucking read it. I have a voice for a reason and I’m not about to let any stupid negative thinking get in the way. Sure, this blog may be about my blonde hair, but if that’s all you see than this is not the place for you.

Taking time away from this has been good and bad. I haven’t been writing, and writing is like a muscle – you need to exercise it or it goes into atrophy and withers and dies. So this post may be long and rambling, or it might be meandering and unrestrained. However, being away from my daily cerebral analysis of my mental and physical perceptions has allowed me to change more radically then I think I was allowing before because I was monitoring myself so religiously. Or it enabled me to change drastically because I wasn’t tethered to my daily cognitive assessments. Which came first? The chicken or the egg? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know (although that fucking owl said it was 3, but I don’t trust him).

The truth is that there is no truth. No, I’m not about to get philosophical on you. I can’t even remember if I took a philosophy class in college. Could that be the one where I feel asleep constantly and people talked about Ayn Rand without end? Anyway, my point is if we’re approaching my BLONDE year as a case study, it is severely flawed and I know that. There is no control subject, and I can’t really compare my experiences as a BLONDE during these 12 months to my experiences as a redhead during a different 12-month period. The 12-month periods would have to be the same 12-month periods because I have no power over the external stimuli (life changes, deaths, snowstorms, social situations, etc…). And I can’t be both a BLONDE and a redhead at the same time, and I can’t have someone else be the control subject because they’re not me, so I can completely understand why my BLONDE year as a serious sociological experiment is pretty much inconclusive. All of my data is emotional, subjective drivel, but that doesn’t mean that this foray into social experimentation was a failure. I didn’t do this for science. I didn’t do this to make the world a better place. I did this for purely selfish reasons.

I have come to realize certain inalienable truths that I want to hold on to for myself, and I believe that these are worth their price at the salon:

1. Regardless of my physical appearance, people will judge me and draw their own conclusions about who I am, what my intentions are, and what I am capable of. It is not my responsibility to prove them right or wrong, but I can acknowledge the existence of these prejudices and move on.

2. My life is my own and while some may consider that philosophy selfish, I’m not concerned with their opinions. Ultimately, I am the master of my own destiny and I won’t let someone else dictate my thoughts or actions. This is my bed, and I’m going to have to lay in it, I might as well be the one to make it (that way I can have the good sheets and make sure the fitted sheet is on all the way so the one corner doesn’t pop up in the middle of the night).

3. Taking care of yourself is not selfish. That’s why the flight attendant always tells you to put your oxygen mask on before assisting others. If I lose consciousness, who the hell is going to help them? That is the lesson we’re supposed to learn for the in-flight safety schpeel, right? There is a difference between being selfish, selfless, and self-sacrificing. Martyrs are great, but I get the feeling they didn’t have too many friends. Call my crazy (or ungrateful)… I don’t know…

4. Not every thought needs to be expressed. In a world of facebook, twitter, and whatever the next thing will be, it’s hard to just refrain from letting it all spill out. Freedom of speech and all that, but it’s not all going to be gold.

5. I like to write, but unfortunately I don’t get to do it as often as I’d like. I wish that someday I could make a living from making art and writing stories, but sometimes I just don’t want to share. The moment I let other people read what I write (like this blog, per se), I’m opening myself to criticism and it’s not that I can’t take it, but sometimes I don’t want it. I don’t do these things for other people. I write because I find joy in it. I paint and draw and redo furniture because I love it. I am going to stop using the excuse that I “don’t have time” to do these things, because if they are things that I enjoy, I’m not going to put them off.

6. My grandmother died. She was one of my favorite people in the world. Her love of candy was unparalleled, but when my mom was collecting her things, she found boxes of chocolates, bags of candies, etc. that she was saving. It’s one thing to stash away money for when you retire, or keep a roll of cookie dough in the freezer, but you shouldn’t deny yourself things now and “save them for later.” Don’t save things for later because there may not be a later. Be prudent, not stingy; be merry, not overindulgent.

7. Following your dream isn’t selfish (as long as pursuing your dream doesn’t directly harm someone else – hopefully you don’t dream about mass murder or anything). It’s how you chart your course that can be selfish.

8. I am a feminist in every sense of the word. I believe in equality for everyone – Blondes, brunettes, redheads – as well as every other color of the rainbow. Having spent such a length of time focused on social norms and the fundamentals on which our social constructs are based, I can’t really remain silent anymore. Women are not being treated properly – and not just in America – AROUND THE WORLD. And certainly there are women who refuse to stand up, or fight convention because it’s “too much effort” or whatever. It’s one thing to “not feel like it,” but it’s totally different when your oppressor (or oppressive, patriarchal society) won’t let you fight for your rights. I never thought that blonde hair would lead to becoming a feminist warrior, but it totally did.

9. Take a compliment; say “thank you.”

I think these truths were probably no-brainers in hindsight, but I think they were harder to come by than you might think. You second-guess yourself, you rationalize your fears, and you take steps backward.

Since the beginning of 2012, I had my hair cut and tipped hot pink. My friend E did it and it’s PHENOMENAL. I’m still blonde, but I figured why not have some fun with it, right? Is it different having pink hair? Yes. People look at you, but people also smile at you. I’ve had total strangers tell me how much they love my hair. And as much as I would like for someone compliment me on my brain or my witty t-shirt, I can take a compliment on my appearance and not let it shame me into thinking that I’m a vapid, self-obsessed twat.

Will this blog continue? Yes, but probably not daily. I don’t think I’ll post unless I have something to say. It’s not all gold, but it doesn’t have to be. Because I said so.

Today gets 5 Barbie Warhols: